bridges vol. 11, September 2006 / Noteworthy Information

Annual Conference of the Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association,
April 13-15, 2007, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

In the early 20th century, Austria and her metropolis Vienna were a major hub of artistic and cultural activity in Central Europe, where also a diversity of influential discourses on sexuality, eroticism, and gender contended and flourished. This is evident in the portrayal of problematic sexual relationships in early Austrian modernism, e.g., in the literary works of Arthur Schnitzler and Peter Altenberg, Karl Kraus's Sittlichkeit und Kriminalität or Otto Weininger's Geschlecht und Charakter, in the popular novel of the time (Josefine Mutzenbacher, Hugo Bettauer), in the beginnings of academic sexology (Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Salomon Krauss, and others), in the activities of Rosa Mayreder and the early women's movement, in the eroticism of the art works of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Alfred Kubin, or in photography. Early stages of this interest in sexuality as a cultural topic are already noticeable in the second half of the 19th century - for example in the works of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch or Hans Makart - as they were preceded by the erotic culture of Josephinism in the late 18th century.